Oh Dear! - Asphalt Junkie

Plan - Drive - Show

Yep, it's time for me to go. I had a great time helping out here at Mini Truckin', but unfortunately my time is up and it's time for me to head back home so I can take care of the Surface DVD fans. But before I take off for good let me give you guys a quick rundown of what goes on around here and the things I have learned from this great experience.

Working here at Mini Truckin' has been a big eye opener for me. I was extremely shocked at how busy Southern California actually is. Coming from Arizona, I hated how hectic it was in Cali. But, surprisingly enough, now that I've lived here, I have realized that it's a way of life. It has grown on me and I actually love it here now. It feels so great to be a small part of this busy metropolitan area, getting something done for a change. And it's nice to join thousands of other motivated motorists on the freeway everyday on the way to and from work. The traffic may not be so great here in sunny SoCal, but I feel like I fit right in and love how aggressive everyone is on and off the road.

I showed up here at Mini Truckin' headquarters to a huge challenge that I wasn't prepared for.

The regular art director, Gabby Lee Oh, was on maternity leave. On my very first day here, everyone was already on top of me saying we only had a week to finish my first issue. But, amazingly, we made it through the tough times, and I managed to knock out four entire issues along with the new 2007 MT calendar.

For the most part, everything has straightened out here, but no matter what, every single issue Mike definitely strives to top the last one and we always end up staying at work late into the night to meet deadlines. Here, we don't stop when the pages are full. We stop when all time has run out and everything looks as good as it can.

Here's a little better idea of what goes on at Mini Truckin' for those who will never see the Primedia office here in Anaheim, California. Some friends of mine (Mini Truckin' fans such as you) had many questions to ask me about the inner workings of the magazine. One of the main questions was, "What all do you do there?" Prior to working here, I thought (just like many of my friends) that there were many people working on just Mini Truckin' magazine. Well, I received quite the surprise on my first day when only a handful of people had anything to do with the magazine. I didn't know that it's mainly just Mike and myself who put together this entire magazine. This of course was right after Chad left and right before Ernie had joined the team. Basically, Mike takes the pictures and writes the stories, with the help of freelancers, and he would send me everything and my job was to assemble it all into the issue you hold in your hands today. And that was it! No big army of people running around. (There are others who work on the ad side and in production. But, for the frontline editorial, we were it.)

Of course, there are other people working on many different titles at once, but the core Mini Truckin' staff was made up of just Mike (the editor), a copyeditor, and myself (the art director). It was great having Ernie join us, though. He fits right in around here. It was almost like he was just on vacation and has come back to work. Well, hopefully, I gave you some better insight into how hectic it can be here with only a few people putting together a magazine. It was a great learning experience that I'll never forget!

I wanted to leave my mark here, so with the go-ahead from Mike, I made some templates and we redesigned some stuff for the magazine that can be used in the issues to come. Mike and I wanted to take each issue to the next level and only want to see the magazine get better and better. There's always room for improvement. I've done my best to liven up the magazine and add as much detail to it as I can. Like in all my work, you'll notice new stuff the second, third, and fourth time you look through each issue. It kind of sucks that as soon as I got comfortable here it was already time for me to go.

But be on the look out for some more work from me in future issues. I'm always honored to help Mike make Mini Truckin' look just as great as the trucks featured inside of it.